The Great Gatsby Quotes by Chapter

Chapter Quote Speaker Theme

1, Page 1 “Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,” he told me, “just remember that Nick Class
all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”

1, Page 2 "Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul Nick-About Gatsby Gatsby's Dream
dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest
in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men."
1, Page 2 “it was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have Nick- About Gatsby Mystery of Gatsby
never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find
again”
1, Page 6 ‘they had spent a year in France for no particular reason, and then drifted Nick- About Tom and Class
here and there unrestfully wherever people played polo and were rich Daisy
together

1, Page 7 “It was a body capable of enormous leverage – a cruel body.” Nick- About Tom Cruelty

1, Page 17 I hope she’ll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a Daisy- About her Gender
beautiful little fool. daughter

3, Page 39 In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the Nick- About Gatsby Gatsby's
whisperings and the champagne and the stars. Elaborateness

3, Page 41 ‘signed Jay Gatsby in a majestic hand.” Nick- About Gatsby Gatsby's
Elaborateness
3, Page 44 “somebody told me they thought he killed a man once.” Party Guest- About Mystery of Gatsby
Gatsby
3, Page 45 “It’s a bona-fide piece of printed matter…What thoroughness! What Owl Eyes- About Mystery of Gatsby
realism!... He snatched the book from me and replaced it hastily on its shelf, Gatsby's Books
muttering that if one brick was removed the whole library was liable to
collapse.”
3, Page 48 “It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, Nick- About Gatsby Mystery of Gatsby
that you may come across four or five times in life.”
 The Great Gatsby Quotes by Chapter
Chapter Quote Speaker Theme
3, Page 48 “I was looking at an elegant young rough-neck, a year or two over thirty, Nick- About Gatsby Mystery of Gatsby
whose elaborate formality of speech just missed being absurd.”
3, Page 48 Nick- About Gatsby Mystery of Gatsby
"He had one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in
it,that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced, or seemed to
face, the whole external world for an instant and then concentrated on you
with an irresistible prejudice in your favour. It understood you just as far as
you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in
yourself."
3, Page 49 Jordan
"Anyhow, he gives large parties ....and I like large parties. They're so
intimate. At small parties there isn't any privacy"
3 Page 49 “But young men didn’t…drift coolly out of nowhere and buy a palace on Long Nick- About Gatsby Mystery of Gatsby
Island Sound.”
3, Page 59 Every one suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is Nick Morality
mine: I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known.
4, Page 73 It never occurred to me that one man could start to play with the faith of fifty Nick Morality
million people — with the single-mindedness of a burglar blowing a safe.
4, Page 74 “She dressed in white, and had a little white roadster.” Jordan- About Daisy Romanticism
4, Page 75 The officer looked at Daisy while she was speaking, in a way that every young Jordan- About Daisy Romanticism
girl wants to be looked at sometime, and because it seemed romantic to me I and Gatsby
have remembered the incident ever since.
4, Page 76 “I’d never seen a girl so mad about her husband. If he left the room for a Jordan- About Daisy Romanticism
minute she’d look around uneasily.”
4, Page 77 “Perhaps Daisy never went in for amour at all – and yet there’s something in Nick-About Daisy Class
that voice of hers.”

4, Page 78 ‘He came alive to me, delivered suddenly from the womb of his purposeless Nick- About Gatsby Gatsby's
splendour.” Elaborateness
5, Page 81 “Your place looks like the World’s Fair.” Nick- About Gatsby's Gatsby's
House Elaborateness
Chapter Quote Speaker Theme
5, Page 84 “Gatsby, in a white flannel suit, silver shirt and gold-coloured tie,…” Nick- About Gatbsy Romanticism
 The Great Gatsby Quotes by Chapter
5, Page “He literally glowed; … a new well-being radiated from him.” Nick-About Gatsby Romanticism
5, Page 91 "He hadn’t once ceased looking at Daisy, and I think he revalued everything in Nick-About Gatsby Gatsby's Dream
his house according to the measure of response it drew from her well-loved
eyes. Sometimes, too, he stared around at his possessions in a dazed way, as
though in her actual and astounding presence none of it was any longer real."
5, Page 91-92 "He had passed visibly through two states and was entering upon a third. After Nick- About Gatsby Gatsby's Dream
his embarrassment and his unreasoning joy he was consumed with wonder at
her presence. He had been full of the idea so long, dreamed it right through to
the end, waited with his teeth set, so to speak, at an inconceivable pitch of
intensity. Now, in the reaction, he was running down like an overwound
clock."
5, Page 93 “His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one.” Nick-About Gatsby Gatsby's Dream
5, Page 95 “There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled Nick-About Gatsby Gatsby's Dream
short of his dreams…because of the colossal vitality of his illusion. It had
gone beyond her, beyond everything.”
6, Page 97 “Contemporary legends such as the underground pipe-line to Canada Nick-About Gatsby's Mystery of Gatsby
attached themselves to him.” Wealth
6, Page 109 “He wanted nothing less of Daisy than that she should go to Tom and say: ‘I Nick- About Daisy Gatsby's Dream
never loved you.’”
6, Page 110 “ ‘Can’t repeat the past?...Why of course you can!’” Gatsby Gatsby's Dream
7, Page 117 Gatsby and I in turn leaned down and took the small, reluctant hand. Nick- About Gatsby's Loss of the Dream
Afterward he kept looking at the child with surprise. I don’t think he had ever interaction with Daisy's
really believed in its existence before. daughter.
7, Page 118 “What’ll we do with ourselves this afternoon?” cried Daisy, “and the day after Daisy Class
that, and the next thirty years?”
7, Page 118 “Don’t be morbid,” Jordan said. “Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in Jordan Romanticism
the fall.”
7, Page 119 She had told him that she loved him, and Tom Buchanan saw. He was Nick- About Daisy's
astounded. His mouth opened a little, and he looked at Gatsby, and then back silent proclamation of
at Daisy as if he had just recognized her as someone he knew a long time ago. love to Gatsby.
Chapter Quote Speaker Theme
7, Page 120 "Her voice is full of money" Gatsby- About Daisy Class
7, Page 124 and it occurred to me that there was no difference between men, in intelligence Nick- About Tom Class
or race, so profound as the difference between the sick and the well.
7, Page 125 "There is no confusion like the confusion of a simple mind" Nick- About Tom Class
7, Page 125 “Tom was feeling the hot whips of panic. His wife and his mistress, until an Nick- About Tom
 The Great Gatsby Quotes by Chapter
hour ago secure and inviolate, were slipping precipitately from his control.”
7, Page 132 “ I did love him once – but I love you too…Even alone I can’t say I never Daisy- To Gatsby Loss of Gatsby's
loved Tom.” Dream
7, Page 134 “with every word she was drawing further and further into herself, so that he Nick- About Daisy Loss of Gatsby's
gave up, and only the dead dream fought on.” Dream
8, Page “Gatsby was overwhelmingly aware of the youth and mystery that wealth Nick- About Gatsby Gatsby's Dream/
imprisons and preserves, of the freshness of many clothes, and of Daisy, Class
gleaming like silver, safe and proud above the hot struggles of the poor.”
8, Page 149 "It excited him, too, that many men had already loved Daisy — it increased Nick- About Gatsby Gatsby's Dream
her value in his eyes. He felt their presence all about the house, pervading the
air with the shades and echoes of still vibrant emotions."
8, Page 149 "he knew that he was in Daisy’s house by a colossal accident. However Nick- About Gatsby Gatsby's
glorious might be his future as Jay Gatsby, he was at present a penniless Dream/Class
young man without a past, and at any moment the invisible cloak of his
uniform might slip from his shoulders."
8, Page 149 "He took what he could get, ravenously and unscrupulously — eventually he Nick-About Gatsby Gatsby's Dream
took Daisy one still October night, took her because he had no real right to
touch her hand."
8, Page 149 "She vanished into her rich house, into her rich, full life, leaving Gatsby — Nick- About Daisy Class
nothing."
8, Page 154 "They're a rotten crowd.... You're worth the whole damn bunch put together." Nick- to Gatsby Class
9, Page 164 "I found myself on Gatsby's side and alone" Nick Loss of Gatsby's
Dream
Chapter Quote Speaker Theme
9, Page 172 "Let us learn to show our friendship for a man when he is alive and not after Meyer Wolfsheim Friendship
he is dead."
9, Page 179 “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy – they smashed up things and Nick- About Tom and Class
creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast Daisy
carelessness.”
9, Page 180 “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year Nick- About Gatsby Romanticism/
recedes before us.” Gatsby's Dream
9, Page 180 "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the Nick Society
past."

*Page numbers refer to the Scribner trade paperback 2004 edition of The Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby Quotes by Chapter
ISBN-13: 978-0-7432-7356-5